Pages

Sunday, January 30, 2011

I can't pinpoint the problem but for the past couple of weeks I've lost all interest in playing WoW but it has actually started about a month ago. Not even 2 months into Cataclysm I'm already bored.

I don't feel like leveling any of my characters anymore. My hunter is the only one I've leveled to 85, while my priest remains 82, my paladin 81, my death knight and warlock remain 80, my mage is 79, my druid is 74 and my shaman is 51. I can't even get myself to make that tiny push to 80 with my mage.

Professions are in an even worse state. The only ones I've leveled to max are mining on my hunter and herbalism on my priest. All the other professions are still at WotLK levels and I don't see any incentive for leveling them farther at this point, not with >500K gold in my possession.

I haven't even done a fraction of the quests in the new Cataclysm zones and even though there's ton of new lore and great stories, I can't get myself to level another character through them.

Even flying through Azeroth has lost its charm. I mean, I do appreciate it and IMO it's the single best thing to come out of Cataclysm but I've already got over it.

For me, this expansion is dead and I don't see what Blizzard could possibly do to make it better. In a way I guess it's just burnout after playing WoW (on and off) for so many years. I don't even feel like playing other games and I'm a die-hard gamer dammit! On the flip side, I have much more time to engage in other fun activities and hobbies.

32 comments:

Kharthus
said...

Couldn't have said it better myself. I have zero desire to raid or even run heroics. I logon and do a few dailies or do archaeology. Got alts at 80, 82, 84...can't even finish them. Started a worgen and got to lvl 15 before that died.

I am enjoying my 85 hunter, not only because this class is currently doing huge DPS in heroics and raids, but also because now I am able to solo a lot of old content that was hard or impossible on 80. Level 85 heroics are hard and I think this is great, everyone has been bitching about how easy and boring the WotLK heroics were back then. My goal currently is to get the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero drake which requires much less achievements than the Northrend drake.

And each week I am doing a full Molten Core clear to finally reach Exalted @ Hydraxian Waterlords, something I failed to achieve back in 2005. And then there's also a very very slight chance for the Thunderfury bindings in each run. :-D I'd level mining just for that. ^^

Considering I finally started moving into Cata about two weeks ago, I'm not burned out yet. Some of my guildies hate-hate-hate Vashj'ir, but I find that I enjoy it. (And that's after having taken two toons through it, too.)

So far, so good. I intend to make it into an instance sometime this week, but I'm not in that great a rush there. Better to study the fights first, I think.

The problem is not Cataclysm or any other expansion in general. The problem is the time you (player) spent on the game.

Think about it: how many pc/console titls are so good to stick a player for *years*, even considering the CRAPPY graphics, CRAPPY 3D engine, BUGS and so on?

It's perfectly normal to get bored of Wow, after YEARS playing it. In my opinion it has nothing to do with Cataclysm per-se, in that sense. I am sure that almost-new players love it and will stick to it for a long time.

I am starting to feel the same thing. I liked running the (hard) heroics, but now my hunter is full "heroic" geared and the only way to upgrade is to (once more) replace items with raid drops.

I started playing DC Universe the day it launched a few weeks ago. I was already on the search for a different game by that time and DC fit the bill. I haven't stopped playing it since.

It was pretty shocking to see WoW boredom hit so soon after the expansion, but it is what it is.

I read somewhere somebody was trying to make the argument... "When all you give me is more quests and more story, but you never ever change the rules, how could I possibly stay interested?" Cata made good on the quests, stories, bells, whistles, but was there anything new to learn? Anything that would truly count as a new experience? Not for me, and apparently I'm not the only one.

I'm sure we'll all be back. Sooner or later Blizz will drop a patch that has SOMETHING pretty irresistible and we'll feel compelled to tinker with WoW again.

I feel your pain. It seems like this expansion has a big gap in it somewhere and I can't see how it could be fixed.

I dread leveling characters now. Even ones in the old world. I think it is the stupid linear questing design they use now. It takes away the fun of exploring on your own and picking and choosing the quests you wish to do.

Maybe taking a break from the game is what you need. I know it is what I need. DCU seems like a decent option and Rift might be a good distraction as well based on early reports.

Same here. I actually haven't logged on to WoW in over 3 weeks. Well, until yesterday, when I got to the character screen, said "Meh", then logged out. Right now, though, Rift seems to be a really great alternative. Wonderful community and a pretty different style.

It is certainly dead if your a solo player. Now let me state right off, I started this game never intending to ever group up for any dungeons. The LFD tool changed all of that. I come from a fairly soloish-mentality, but that is not this game anymore, and it certainly isn't what Cata is all about. So honestly yeah, if you are going to insist on doing things by yourself, you can go for alot more old achivements than before (BC Heroics are easily soloable even for a cloth character now). I myself am farming Shettek Halls and Magister's Terrace on my Mage for the mounts. But Cata was designed with guilds in mind. It's just a fact. And Blizz has gone out of there way to make it easier for players to get involved in the social aspect of the game.

As for the professions, Alchemy was a breeze to level with a herb alt farmer. The crafting profs are a different beast however. Since I have refused to buy any cloth off the AH, my Tailoring is just now getting to 522/525. But one needs to keep in mind that once you get to 525 you then have access to TWO Raid-level epics. This is the first section of the expac, crafting profs are SUPPOSED to be hard to level.

All in all, Cata is getting alot of things right IMO. Yeah, some of the heroics (Grim Batol and Stonecore) are murderously hard, but most of them are either just right or very easy (Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides). Tol Balard is interesting. Arch is a nice casual time-waster (as long as you only do it on one toon).

There are things I don't like (Worgen for one, have been a total disappointment). But on the whole, the whole operation has been a great success. I agree, the expansion IS dead for a solo player. But coming from a former solo player, what I'm saying is that in the new world Blizz has created (new, better explained talents trees, LFG tool) being a solo player no longer makes much sense.

Heh heh I love it when lots of people agree with me :) Yes, it's definitely the fact that I've been playing the game for so long, through all expansions, such that even Cata, with all the nice things it brought, feels like been-there-done-that.

From what so many of you are saying, I have a feeling that Blizzard will really have to scramble with interesting updates during the course of this expansion, or else people might get bored quicker than ever.

@Anon the last, you must be new around here :) When I started this blog I was a hardcore solo player and wouldn't have anything to do with groups or guilds. Things have changed in the meantime. After the dungeon finder was introduced, I started running random dungeons like crazy and in fact that's how I've been leveling my last few toons. I've been dps-ing, tanking and healing dungeons. Besides, my youngest chars are in real guilds, populated by real people, but mostly for the guild perks because they are not yet high enough to run max level dungeons/heroics with guild members.

Perhaps it's just the hunter class? I too, have focused pretty much exclusively on my hunter since the release of Cata. My DK is still at 80 wondering how to play unholy DPS again in Mount Hyjal, and my Priest has cleared some of Vash'ir, but I just can't seem to get the urge to continue.

Cata did two things to me: it converted all of my toons to their DPS spec (DK had a tank spec and Priest had healing spec). I'll still use tank or heals in Wrath, but not confident enough in the mechanics there yet to try in Cata.

Also, still feel like the heroic / raid instance are so new that I'm lacking confidence to really jam on those so I do find myself waffling about with achievements.

I don't think the game is dead, but I do agree its a brand new experience that is a new way to play. I think I'm just getting used to that.

But I didn't even play with my hunter much. Just did some farming (which was pleasurable) and leveled him to 85. Then abandoned him there. I mostly concentrated on my druid, leveling him by mostly tanking instances.

It does bother me that they made tanking and especially healing so hard. I would have liked to try some more healing but eh... I'm not that good so I won't the frustration.

I left WoW before Wrath in October 2008 having taken 5 toons to 70 over three years. I returned last November in time for Cataclysm.

I’ve enjoyed leveling my arms warrior to 85 but don’t care to go on with the others like I did before. I wanted a stable of self-sufficient characters but that’s just too much trouble and not really viable anyway.

I know the dungeon finder works great but I still prefer to go it alone. I would consider proceeding with my professions but an insurmountable barrier exists: the Chaos Orb! If you don’t run heroics over and over (and win the orbs) you can’t make high-level gear.

That’s game, set and match Blizzard! I really believe that playing for a month or two every couple of years just might be my MO now.

I feel the same way and have been trying to put my finger on why .. On the up-side, its given me some time to play some of the other games I missed out on while I was addicted to Warcrack .. Guitar Hero, the new Mario Bro, GTA4.. - Ret has been neutered. I’m doing less damage than lesser geared tanks. - Ground mounts are dead .. I have no desire to grind for them anymore. - Not enough new “fun” items. Where are the new fishing poles, train wreckers .. - Random heroics for DPS are just frustrating.. Long queue time for a slight chance that you will actually finish. - Playing since mid BC , I’m totally sick of the gear grind. My engineering goggles will be useless way too soon. - Grinding .. I think you can only grind for so long before you start to realize it’s just a cruel joke.

@Splce Mainbrace"I really believe that playing for a month or two every couple of years just might be my MO now." well said. Unfortunately we still have to play full price for the expansion if we want to get in on it right away.

Ditto on the Chaos Orbs. I can't be bothered to work so hard for them when in a few months they'll be much easier to acquire.

I think this expansion is better played during the last few months when all the mats are cheap and well-geared people are running heroics like crazy.

@Alex I'm with you, especially on the following:- ground mounts. There's really no reason to bother getting one, except for the level 20 mount.- random heroics... I don't even want to think about them since I found regular dungeons hard.- the grind has indeed become intolerable. Same ol' same ol'

The ret nerfs don't bother me a lot because I'm not a hardcore theory-crafter and number-cruncher and I just enjoy the feel of the class.

In my experience, the game improves as with your gear. When I was running around in average iLevel 330 gear, the Heroics were hard, especially in pug groups. Now that I acquired a few high end items (by chance and by the AH), I've gone through a several heroics without a single wipe. Just keep in mind, they require a lot of coordination for crowd control and the fighting style is dramatically different than Wrath. AOE is bad!

I think what is happening, is that Blizz is working hard to satisfy a large number of different types of players. Elite raiders who hate seeing 'casual' players (like myself) running around in full tier gear. Casual players who would like to fill pug spots in dungeons/raids but need to have the gear.

Their solution in Cata has been guilds. Get the players to work together to get guild based achievements. While working on the achievement, the players will get gear drops and in turn achievements that provide gear, mounts and pets.

On the other hand, they have made leveling up very easy. I've had one friend, level his shadow priest up 3 levels by simply flying around each zone and picking herbs. Nice way to get mats for alchemy and inscription alts and not have to grind quests.

If you're still bored, have you considered playing the other faction? The starting quest areas for the Horde have been revamped and include some quite different quest chains. The area around Undercity and those in the Barrens had a nice, non-grindy feel.. :)

I generally agree with the sentiments here, not much else i want to say about WoW. however, i do want to give DCUO another thumbs up and encourage others to try it. it's not a perfect game, but it is fun and does a lot of stuff right. i don't miss crafting or the auction house AT ALL.

Isn't DCUO more like an action RPG than a true MMORPG? I mean I'm intrigued by the concept and I love superheroes but personally I'm not a comic book nut and definitely not a major superhero fanatic. I'm a lot more into Star Wars but I doubt I'll ever get into the new SW MMO.

I suppose, but i'm not sure what a 'true' MMORPG is. personally, i 've not played any MMO older than WoW. i haven't made it to 'endgame' yet, but DCUO plays very much like WoW, only no AH or crafting. there's still 'dungeons' and dailies and raiding and pvp and reputations to grind. and of course, lots of quests.

I agree about the raid content, but I've never been much of a raider. I'd much rather solo... and soloing is only dead if you don't enjoy making gold. XD

Put your main and all your alts in a gbank guild together. Then you have incentive to level for guild perks that can never be lost when some fool decides to blow up your guild. I've been working on alts (love how fast it is to level now) so I can have enough high-level toons to have one maxed in each prof. I've already got the JC-Alch-Ench trifecta, so I have plenty of gold to powerlevel profs and fill gear gaps while leveling.

the pvp is like wow, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. The thing that i find annoying is that when hte rifts and invasions come, they sometimes interfere with quests and quest givers. I have been playing since Beta and love it.

@Paul the rifts/invasions sound like the special events in WoW before an expansion like the plague or the elemental invasion, which also tend to disrupt quests and especially the Auction House! I can deal with that once a year but I'm not sure how it would feel if it happened on a daily basis.

I usually don't get into this sort of commentary - but I kind of agree. I actually think the pre-cata patch added a lot more than Cata itself. I've not even explored all the raids and stuff and I'm already kind of bored with it.Rift is a re-skin of WoW, you have to play it for quite a while to get past that.Every game has some serious flaws, but still, that was a little blatant, not to mention their WoW-based advertising.Tera-online looks like a polished accomplishment so far, but stupid gamers are all just complaining you can't play naked young girls in the Western version.Dang gamers just drive me crazy man!

Since Cata I've actually spent more time doing OLD stuff. I'm more than high enough to go back and solo old stuff that I didn't get to fully experience before, and that has been nice.But I think I also go through different moods for playing. And I've spent less time on WoW and some more on SC2, and even played Lotro for a few hours yesterday (even hooked to my big screen for no good reason) and enjoyed that plenty.

WoW Sites

Followers

About Me

Former WoW player, current Diablo 3 fanatic, I love the finer things in life such as PC games, beer and computers. While playing a good game is a spiritual experience, blogging about it is almost equally rewarding.